1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus and, more particularly, to an apparatus for recording data on a memory device integrating a recording medium and a memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an apparatus of this type, a digital VTR which records digital image and audio signals on a magnetic tape is known. In recent years, in digital VTRs for the consumer use, a technique of recording data for a tape cassette provided with a cassette memory comprising a semiconductor memory arranged outside a magnetic tape has been proposed. The tape cassette with the cassette memory has I/O terminals used for reading/writing data from/to the cassette memory. As the purpose of use of such cassette memory, various kinds of information associated with data recorded on a tape inside a cassette on which the cassette memory is arranged, such as a recording start point, recording end point, recording date, and the like, may be written in the cassette memory.
On the other hand, since such cassette memory is expensive, a tape cassette without any cassette memory is also available. As a result, both VTRs which allow both read/write accesses to the cassette memory (to be referred to as compatible VTRs hereinafter) and VTRs which cannot make read/write accesses to the cassette memory (to be referred to as incompatible VTRs hereinafter) are expected to be present on the market.
When a given cassette having the above-mentioned cassette memory is used in both the compatible and incompatible VTRs, various kinds of information associated with recording by the compatible VTR alone are stored in the cassette memory, but no information associated with recording by the incompatible VTR is recorded, as a matter of course. Accordingly, even when the operation control, e.g., a program search of a tape, is performed on the basis of information stored in the cassette memory, the VTR may cause operation errors. For example, when the first recording is performed using the compatible VTR and the recording end point is stored in the cassette memory, and thereafter, the second recording is performed using the incompatible VTR, the second recording end point is not stored in the cassette memory. Hence, upon executing the third recording, if a program search is made using the first recording end point stored in the cassette memory and the third recording is started from the found first recording end point, the contents of the second recording are erased.
In view of this problem, the operation control of the VTR according to the data stored in the cassette memory may be inhibited. However, in this case, the cassette memory cannot be effectively used.